Posted by By Roland Ogbonnaya on
Federal Government yesterday expressed displeasure at the state of the universities and therefore urged the pro-chancellor of the federal government owned universities to take a deeper look into the management-induced problems of their various institutions instead of crying over funding.
Federal Government yesterday expressed displeasure at the state of the universities and therefore urged the pro-chancellor of the federal government owned universities to take a deeper look into the management-induced problems of their various institutions instead of crying over funding.
Speaking at the special meeting of the new Committee of Pro-chancellors (CPCs) of Nigerian universities at the University of Lagos yesterday, the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Peter Okebukola said that the President Olusegun Obasanjo Administration has in the past five years injected over N195 billion into the 24 federal universities and yet many of the problems that 'we all are familiar with persist."
In 2004 alone, he disclosed that the federal universities received over 50 per cent of the entire federal budget for education, adding that over admission of poor quality students which is a management problem has led to the under-resourcing of the system and the emergence of a plethora of social vices and the production of poor quality graduates.
He said that one of the several ways of tackling the problem is a commitment on the part of councils and senates to cut 'our coat according to our cloth through matching our student and staff input by way of number and quality with the financial resources that are available."
Okebukola said the CPCs meeting would no doubt present several other perspectives by way of solution as 'we reposition the Nigerian university system in this new millennium. For us in NUC, the good news is that we all are on the right course towards reforming the system."
In a keynote address presented at the occasion, the Pro-chancellor of the University of Lagos and chief host of the meeting Dr. Afe Babalola disagreed with the Federal Government that universities should not charge school fees, a position the committee has been canvassing.
Babalola, in the address titled 'The Nigerian University System in the New Millennium" decried the under-funding of universities even when universities are prepared to reduce the intake of students. He advocated for the encouragement of the establishment of endowment funds in the universities as well as cooperative partnership in the funding of the universities.
'Governments, parents, the alumni, the communities, multinationals and other successful companies must be encouraged to participate in cooperative partnership of funding universities," Babalola further explained.
The maiden meeting of the pro-chancellors of Nigerian universities including federal, state and private owned universities was called to exchange ideas on ways of managing Nigerian universities to meet international standard.